As expected, the Karsaz tragedy has laid bare many dark sides of our society. Yes, Natasha Danish, the driver, is to blame – she drove extremely recklessly and negligently with little regard for the life of anyone else on the road – her own life was well-protected in her behemoth of a vehicle.
Enough CCTV footage has surfaced by now to strongly suggest that it was a case of very bad and reckless driving and that the driver should face the full brunt of the law, regardless of the fortunes of her husband and family.
That said, a few things need to be said about the behaviour of our society and that of the people on social media in particular. From the first few hours of the terrible tragedy, without the slightest shred of evidence, or a medical lab report confirming this, most people started posting that she was drunk and completely intoxicated. Given that drinking alcohol is officially prohibited in Pakistan, this suggests a moral value to the driver’s actions – that not only was she very negligent, but she was also immoral.
However, later, the police said that medical reports did not show that she was under the influence of alcohol. People then pointed to edited parts of the CCTV footage where she looked very confused and dazed, but that could easily be the sign of someone in severe shock and stress.
The case has garnered considerable media attention, and for good reason – because the CCTV footage suggests that it was extraordinarily rash and negligent driving that caused the tragic and untimely deaths of Imran Arif and his daughter Amna Arif apart from putting four others in hospital.
The idea behind manufacturing such a photograph and then disseminating was to incite hate against not only the driver but also against the government
The icing of this sordid saga, so to speak, so far has been how a picture of the female driver flashing the ‘V for Victory’ sign went viral a day ago. This picture was shared by several prominent journalists as well. I also came across the picture, but I wondered to myself where was it taken – had a bail hearing taken place and had she been granted bail? I checked, and I double-checked, and I could not find any such report – and so I decided not to share it on my Twitter/X handle.
And, as I suspected, the picture was a fake, and it had been photoshopped or generated by Artificial Intelligence. Whatever you want to call it, what was being shown in that picture, the rich wife of an industrialist mocking everyone around her despite her heinous actions, never happened, it never took place.
The idea behind manufacturing such a photograph and then disseminating was to incite hate against not only the driver but also against the government – since the assumption by most people is that since the culprit comes from a very wealthy background, she will not face punishment for what she did. One doesn’t really have to think too hard about who would do such a thing, given that the social media team of one particular political party is always trying to manufacture fake news to soil Pakistan’s image and to pressure the government and the military.
In all this, the death of Karachi police traffic constable Aqil Khan went unnoticed and largely unreported. He died while trying to stop a mini-truck driver who was trying to escape from the scene after running over a pedestrian. Aqil Khan physically came in front of the mini-truck to stop and get a hold of the driver, but instead of slowing down, the driver accelerated the vehicle and ran over the constable.
Poor Aqil Khan got not so much as even a mention in the media or social media.
In the sordid Karsaz saga, we should resist the temptation to judge the accused, the judiciary, and the police and let the law take its course. At least wait for that to happen and for the natural outcome of that process.
But that may be expecting too much of ourselves.